Sunroof

ABSTRACT

A sunroof, which is adapted to provide either home passive heating by solar accumulation or passive refrigeration due to its particular structure that additionally provides insulation conditions from the external environment. The sunroof allows incorporating heating and refrigeration during construction of homes for users looking for biosustainable solutions in the long term at present reasonable prices and included in moderately innovative products. The sunroof is comprised by structural sheets (preferable metallic) over which substantially parallel first and second transparent laminar elements are positioned, defining between such sheets and the first laminar elements a first chamber, and forming between first and second laminar elements a second watertight chamber; the first chamber is capable of being filled with water as the external and upper surface of the second transparent laminar element, which is filled with water or opaque and/or reflective liquids. Preferably, a stationary reflective cover is positioned over the laminar elements.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a sunroof that can be used for home heating as cooling due to its particular structure, which additionally provides isolation features from the outside. The same allows incorporating passive heating and cooling during construction of upper-middle class homes for users looking for biosustainable solutions in the long term at reasonable prices. This invention will provide heating and cooling during the whole year for a conventional house self-sufficiently, with the exception of an extremely low power consumption of the water pump and the driving means of the unfoldable cover, in warm to hot weather or moderately cold areas.

BACKGROUND ART

In the previous art there are numerous designs of solar homes technically feasible but not popular because of their high costs.

In the last years the use of different solar collectors integrated to the roof with regular success has been proposed. In general, these collectors are of two types: coil water collectors attached to the sheet roof and air intermediate chamber collectors. Water collectors are costly to manufacture, while air collectors have the drawback of the low density of energy accumulated in said fluid, having to use intermediate heat accumulators (for example, big blocks of concrete).

The solutions consisting of roofs with upper water chamber to provide cooling in warm zones are also known. In this case, a daytime reflective protective cover is removed during the night to cool the water by evaporation and thermal radiation. Sometimes cooling is also possible below ambient temperature, according to the ambient dew point.

The present invention proposes a new concept of adaptable roof, by combining both design lines previously mentioned but in a single roof, and also adding other advantages that will be discussed later.

By analyzing in a more detailed manner the devices of the prior art, we can say that roof-integrated collector designs are mounted following the classic concept of roof that can be summarized by saying that an ideal roof is an adiabatic roof, not creating synergies between both concepts (roof and collector), providing accumulator systems very expensive and therefore not very popular in the practice.

The roof of the present invention is made by using a single piece structural rectangular o trapezoidal cross section sheet (upper side black) (zip-rip system or similar), that by using omega profiles proposed in an embodiment of the invention allow to support transparent sheets and create water and air chambers, and by disposing in a preferred embodiment a unfoldable reflective upper cover, creating a smart roof design adaptable to different environmental conditions, such as day/night, summer/winter.

In winter-day a water chamber is created between the sheet and a first glass that will be heated by sunlight. Moreover, the room will be heated by thermal radiation from the sheet roof using the emissivity of its lower side, painting with different colors each sector to ‘tune’ the heating of each room to increase or decrease heating if desired. This water inventory is derived to a storage tank at night, from where it is used to heat the house by radiant floor or conventional water radiators, generating a double or triple watertight air chamber, depending on the use of an unfolded reflective cover, which efficiently thermically isolates the roof.

In summer nights, an external water chamber is formed (pumping the water inventory over a second glass) to overcool the same (by evaporation and radiation), deriving the same in the day to the roof-first glass chamber (preferably protected by a unfolded reflective screen or by a water bed formed by flowing liquid over the second laminar element of the roof), to provide cooling of the habitat by natural conversion from this upper cold source. The liquid flowing over the second laminar element is an opaque or reflective liquid to block the solar radiation toward the roof in the configuration of use summer-day and to protect the transparent surfaces from hail.

Eventually, the reflective screen is deployed (or the external surface of the second laminar element flooded with the opaque liquid) in case of hail or snow to protect the glass upper roof. This upper reflective cover or screen will be folded or turned up over one of the sides of the roof using for example any of the mechanisms used with curtains or external awnings, since unlike other designs of the previous art the cover does not have any other requirement than a conventional awning.

The annual power saving (electricity and/or fossil fuels) that provides the present invention adds to an initial investment equal to conventional constructions, due to the avoidance of conventional isolation layers (ridges, insulating material, etc.) and cooling systems.

It is calculated that with a roof of 100 m² it is possible to heat during the day in winter about 3,000 to 5,000 liters of water to 70° C., and in summer to cool at temperatures from 5° C. to 15° C. an equal inventory of water, providing in this example sufficient heating and cooling.

Among the documents and patents that disclose in a more detailed matter the background art it is possible to mention the Japanese and American publications JP 2005291594, 20/10/2005 (Takeyama Hitoshi), JP 2005273970 06/10/2005, (Shiraiwa Katsuhisa), US 2005120637 09/06/2005 (Hobe Rohan), US 6820439 23/11/2004 (Marek Raymond), US 2004045699 11/03/2004 (Noah Norman Chester), US 2003061773 03/04/2003 (O'leary Patrick), JP 2004079900 11/03/2004 (Sekoguchi Masatoshi), US 6533026 18/03/2003 (Noah Norman), JP 2003185290 2003-07-03 (Nomura Satoru; Sakai Takeshi), JP 2003120958 2003-04-23 (Tanaka Yoshiaki) and the German DE 10156873 2003-05-28 Ludwig Gerhard (De); as well as the publications from Medved S., Arkar C. and Cerne B.. ‘A Large-Panel Unglazed Roof-Integrated Liquid Solar Collector-Energy And Economic Evaluation’. Solar Energy 75 (2003) 455-467.; Maneewan, Hirunlabh, Khedari, Zeghmati and Teekasap. ‘Heat Gain Reduction By Means Of Thermoelectric Roof Solar Collector’. Solar Energy 78, (2005) 495-503.; Khedari, Hirunlabh and Bunnag. ‘Experimental Study Of A Roof Solar Collector Towards The Natural Ventilation Of New Habitations’. WREC 1996, Energy Technology Division, King Monkuts'S Institute Of Technology Thonburi.; Hassan And Beliveau. ‘Design, Construction And Performance Prediction Of Integrated Solar Roof Collectors Using Finite Element Analysis’. Construction And Buildings MATERIALS (2206) In Press.; Sanchez, Lucas, Martinez, Sanchez And Viedma. ‘Climatic Solar Roof: An Ecological Alternative To Heat Dissipation In Buildings’. Solar Energy 73 (6) (2002) 419-432.; Belusko, Saman And Bruno. ‘Roof Integrated Solar Heating System With Glazed Collector’. Solar Energy 76 (2004) 61-69; Dilip Jain. ‘Modeling of solar passive techniques for roof cooling in arid regions’. Building and Enviranment, 41 (2006) 277-287.; y Jiang He, Akio okumura, Akira Hoyano and kohichi Asana. ‘A Solar cooling project for hot and humid climates’. Solar Energy 71 (2) (2001) 135-145.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

To better understand the object of the present invention, the following illustrative figures show schematically a preferred embodiment of the invention, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a longitudinal cut-away side view of a sunroof according to the structure of the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a longitudinal cut-away view of the sunroof of the present invention particularly for winter and daytime;

FIG. 3 shows a general operation scheme of the sunroof wherein both possible water layers and the general hydraulic and heating circuit are shown;

FIG. 4 shows an operation scheme of the sunroof in winter and at night;

FIG. 5 shows a longitudinal cut-away view of the sunroof with its reflective cover in summer and daytime:

FIG. 6 shows a longitudinal cut-away view of the sunroof with its reflective cover in summer and at night.

In the drawings the same numbers denote identical or corresponding elements.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION Disclosure

As shown in FIG. 1, the sunroof of the present invention comprises a sliding reflective cover 1, which is separated and disposed over a first transparent laminar element 2, preferably made of glass, which rests on omega profiles 3 located over the side portions of the sheets 4, that are planar but forming steps on both ends, whereby they join to each other to the contiguous sheets, that form the roof of the room or place to heat. Additionally, on the lower wings of the consecutive omega profiles 3, second transparent laminar elements 5 are positioned, preferably made of glass, forming between said second transparent material laminar elements and the sheets 4 a watertight or air chamber 6, and between the first and second laminar elements an air chamber 7.

Arrows 8 shown in FIG. 1 correspond to the radiation heat directed from the lower surface of the sheets 4 to the room to air-condition. By this mechanism a net heat transfer from the roof to the room by temperature differences is created, being possible to use coverings of different red radiation emissivities in the lower side of the metallic roof to tune this transference in each room.

FIG. 2 shows a configuration of use of the roof elements to be used preferably in winter and during the day. There is a very light slope of the roof indicated, that allows to drain water well but keeping a level of liquid through all the extension under the joints between the sheets, made on an upper step, without compromising in this way permeability of the metal roof.

Cold water will enter through conduit 9 to chamber 6, and hot water will exit conduit 10 for heating the desired room by a conventional radiant heater. The sliding reflective cover 1 is there totally folded to allow sunlight heating the water inside the chamber 6.

FIG. 3 shows in a more detailed manner the preferred movement of water in a room. There the water from conduit 10 can be directed to a water heater 11 to exit then to a device that consumes the water such as a shower (conduit 12).

Other possible direction of the water of conduit 10 is a radiator 13, with its pump 14, or a storage tank under greenhouse 15.

At night, also in winter, and as shown in FIG. 4, the reflective cover 1 is extended to thermally isolate from the snow or rainwater the chambers and the air-conditioned room. It is shown the cold water inlet 9 and the hot water outlet 10, that are used to drain chamber 6 to form three separate and parallel air chambers on the sheet 4, that contribute together to efficiently isolate the roof. The highly reflective unfoldable cover, by its upper and lower side, also contributes to reflect the infrared radiation from the roof 4, avoiding heat losses by this mechanism.

FIG. 5 shows an embodiment of the sunroof in summer and during the day, wherein the reflective cover is unfolded to reject sunlight, and chamber 6 remains full of cooled water during the night cycle, to provide passive refrigeration from the roof 4 to the house.

FIG. 6 shows the summer situation during the night, wherein the cover upper air chamber 2 contained by the sides is now a water chamber. Being the cover 1 unfolded and by external temperature water evaporates from the upper chamber which reduces temperature of said water that can be sent then to the lower chamber during the day to cool the room as explained previously.

Though the invention has been described and illustrated by a preferred embodiment of the invention, any other embodiment falls within the scope thereof which is only limited by the attached claims. 

1. A sunroof characterized in that comprises structural profile sheets over which substantially parallel first and second transparent laminar elements are positioned, defining between said sheets and the first laminar elements a first chamber, and forming between first and second laminar elements a second chamber; having the first chamber inlet and outlet water conduits; being the second transparent laminar element capable of permitting the flow of a liquid over its external surface.
 2. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that a stationary reflective cover is disposed over the second transparent laminar element, forming an intermediate air chamber.
 3. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that said first and second surface are made of glass, and as the sheets, said surfaces are disposed substantially horizontally.
 4. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that an omega profile is disposed between the join edges of two contiguous sheets to support the first transparent surface.
 5. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that the structural profile sheets form an upper step where they join.
 6. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that the external face of the structural sheet, that forms the water chamber, is metallic and black.
 7. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that the inner face of the metallic sheet, in contact with the environment, is painted with different colors according to the room to air-condition, (to provide a different level of heating by infrared radiation).
 8. A sunroof according to claim 2, characterized in that a cylinder is positioned adjacent to the roof over which said stationary reflective cover is folded.
 9. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that the liquid flowing over the second transparent laminar element is a opaque or reflective liquid (to block the solar radiation to the roof in the configuration summer-day and to protect the transparent surfaces from hail, while water is used in this position, in the configuration summer-night, to cool this water, which is bypassed during the day to the first chamber, to cool the habitat).
 10. A sunroof according to claim 1, characterized in that the sunroof is positioned on a sloped surface. 